This year’s annual Maple Syrup Festival at the A.W. Campbell Conservation Area – to be held March 18 and 19 – will mark 45 years of sugary sweetness, celebrating what Canada is best known for.

Rick Battson of the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority said the event also helps ring in the start of spring, marking the arrival of the well-loved liquid gold while educating the public on its earliest production.

“It’s a demonstration about how the maple syrup was made in the past,” he said. “They go right back to the First Nations people and the legend of how they discovered maple syrup.”

Battson said the day will include hands on activities for kids, such as making maple candy.

“You boil it, then pour it over ice,” he said. “And the kids can try that, or adults too, for that matter.”

He also said they have a new addition to this year’s events – horse-drawn wagon rides.

“My favourite thing about it is that it’s like a rite of spring,” Battson said. “Every year we head out there and enjoy the smells of the fires and the whole historic sense of it.”

In conjunction with the event, the Alvinston volunteer firefighters will be holding a pancake and sausage breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday at the local community centre.